₦airaland Forum

David Ani Responds To Gbadamosi:

THE YORUBA NATION WILL NOT OPT OUT OF THIS NATION....FORGET IT, NOT NOW, NOT THIS GENERATION.............AND WHY THE NORTH THINK THEY ARE UNFAIRLY BEING INSULTED.

Owing to the recent invasion of south west, just like almost every other place, except that theirs is more cordinated, lots of our western brethren are angry and sometimes you hear expression of anger that sounds like that of Nnamdi Kanu.....but the truth is that any westerner that think his people will embark on opting out is just exhibiting youthful exuberance. No, not yet. I will tell you about it.

THE NORTH might be right to get angry when they think we all are "harassing" them out of their own advantage.

When Biafra was defeated, there were two MAJOR glaring advantages that existed....they are 1) POLITICAL POWER LOOT OF WAR and (2) ECONOMIC POWER LOOT OF WAR.

The north naturally took up the political advantage, they couldn't have taken over the two because lack of human capital development hunted the north till the 80's until they hurriedly churn out so many graduates between 67-80's and in fact till date, creating their own standards different from the entire nation for ease of passage. This will later be one of the hugest channels of supplying nation killing human resources.

The west also by their natural positioning and almost a century gap human development between them and their new allies took up the ECONOMIC LOOT OF THE WAR.

Remember, when the war ended in 1970 while the eastern region was still burying their dead, while they were still wailing that their money was locked up in the bank, no matter the amount you had, prior to the war, you are only given 20 pounds, while they are still in that confusion,the government whose engine room was Chief Awo started indigenisation policy.....the policy transferred MULTINATIONAL MONEY SPINNING COMPANIES BACK TO NIGERIANS,some of them actually collected loans to acquire this fortune, loans which some have claimed are part of the money siezed from Igbos.

New generation of forever family wealth and dynasties were born by that exercise.

Naturally, the west took over that advantage......the north would later through political power which controls the economic loot of the war tried and still trying to reduce the western influence.

To get even on this ECONOMIC LOOT, the north have created all manner of multi streams of economic channels including "dashing" out of oil blocs to too many retired army generals, traditional rulers, etc and creating too many billionaires than the north is able to develop, human resource wise...so the north is an enclave of extremes.....EXTREMELY rich folks and EXTREMELY poor folks.

Now, when we 'harass' the north to give up the political power they acquired as a result of victory of the war, we hardly, in fact, no one asks or 'harasses' the west to bring back the ECONOMIC power they acquired as a result of same victory.

So, the north is naturally aggressive when we tell them this, especially when it is coming from the Lagos press.

The western elites still has the sugar of the WAR ECONOMIC LOOT dangling in their mouth, by way of reflex, they can even go to war again to still keep Nigeria one....so, I implore my friends from the west that are talking about southern solidarity to understand that they still have lots of work to do in-house before calling on others.

An average western elite will prefer we speak our way out of this quagmire with grammar, adding restructuring, regional autonomy here and there, together with their eastern collaborators who are also well fed from the dysfunctional system we run....but it is clear that all the grammar speaking conferences from Enugu to Ibadan will help no one.

Remember, since 1970 till lately, the western region controls the cabal of 'budget implementation'....they created most of the established routes and junctions of "procurement of this and that" we have had in our budgets for decades.....though around early 80's Igbos joined the race.

Igbos joined the race by proxy, Emeka will buy the contracts given to Tunde, Tunde will collect his money, Emeka will execute the project, sometimes very badly, call Musa that will supervise the project executed, stuff Musa's pocket with part of the money made from the shoddy execution and Musa will look the other way while the shoddy project is passed....have you seen how we arrived at the terrible culture of badly executed projects? Everyone contributed to ruining and killing the country. This orientation might never change.

Beside, the "procurement budget" we run, which is based on buying buying buying and mostly buying irrelevant things is the major source of our underdevelopment and huge corruption culture.

There is no fraud in our budgeting system, the budget and the so called implementation process is THE fraud itself.

The Niger delta oil is increasingly becoming insufficient for all our greed and the collapse will be imminent, even our private sector with its untapped potentials is dependent on crude oil, reason you hear things like "money no dey, they never pass budget'

Lets calm down, if we fail to do the needful, our wahala will get to a boiling point and collapse is unavoidable.

I just pity regions who are not developing and preparing their future generation against what is inevitable. Unfortunately, I don't think my region is preparing enough, though most vocal in calling for the needful.
We have been cursed with most unfortunate crop of clowns all of the places since 1999, not delivering even up to 30% of our people's potential.

Finally, Dear BOG, I pray you become Lagos governor soonest, I believe you will do a better job, I like your person very well but sir, leave Igbos out of the calamity happening in the west, Igbos are not even exempted, the calamity actually started from their soil and even though they were mocked then, I am not sure they asked others to remember a non practicable solidarity. I know you have always been fair to Igbos in your commentary but at this trying time, leave Igbos....sir.

Igbos have paid enough price of jumping into other people's " heat period", during ours, we are always left or even blamed or lectured for not doing something right.

There's actually no time to read everything up there, but judging from the topic, I'll make my assertion.

What has the Igbos done to show their preparedness to actualise and sustain a 5-state biafra? Only media rants. Even chief Kanu is giving instructions from Europe.

So how does Igbos plan to bring SS under their canopy in unity?

Aptly stated. All man on your own

Officialgarri:
There's actually no time to read everything up there, but judging from the topic, I'll make my assertion.

What has the Igbos done to show their preparedness to actualise and sustain a 5-state biafra? Only media rants. Even chief Kanu is giving instructions from Europe.

So how do plan to bring SE under their canopy in unity?

Why does the name Kanu give you orgasm. See discussion going on between two southerners seeking way forward, you are masturbating on Kanu

Gbadamosi responds to David Ani.

Everything you said was correct EXCEPT the part of ECONOMIC LOOT, which seems to suggest that until the end of the Biafran war, the Yorubas were a dirt poor race feeding from the garbage dump, and the wealth we see today was a direct result of stealing Igbo money. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.

I recall CLEARLY that prior to the war, there were several hundred Yoruba millionaires, into different aspects of economic activity. I know this because my own grandfather was one of them, being the first indigenous industrialist in Nigeria, having established the now rested Ikorodu Trading Company in the 1930s with his cousins R.A. Allison and Kamson.

The first Trunk A road in Nigeria was built by the people of Ikorodu, the 50km Ikorodu Road, built through the most challenging terrain you could imagine, between 1947 and 1953 - clearly not built with Biafran money.

The first indigenous patent medicine - Alabukun powder - was produce by yet another Ikorodu man, this time based in Sapon, Abeokuta - J.O. Odulate from 1918. He clearly did not use Biafran money.

Oni and Sons was a famous road contractor whose company helped build majority of the roads in the Western region during the self-rule period that also predates the birth of Biafra.

The Odutolas of Ijebu-ode, Da-Rocha, Shitta-Bey, Fajemirokun, Samuel Adedoyin, Akinola Maja, H. Ọ. Davies, Obafemi Awolowo, and others too numerous to mention were already millionaires BEFORE the advent of Biafra.

To suggest, therefore, that Yoruba economic advancement came from "Biafran loot" is not just insulting to this intrepid race of traders, industrialists, technocrats and administrators who had been mingling with the world's aristocracy since Victorian times, it is patently dishonest, false and simply delusional self-aggrandisement.

Now, that said, one cannot dispute the fact that indeed, the Biafrans were hard done by immediately before, during and after the war. However, one must not sweep the incidence of "abandoned" property under the carpet, where property owned by Igbo people prior to the war were seized by their neighbours and declared "abandoned". This occured THROUGHOUT Nigeria EXCEPT Yorubaland, where Biafrans returned to meet their properties intact, having been faithfully administered by their Yoruba neighbours who promptly handed them over after the war.

This narrative you're pushing, David O Ani is the dream of the internal colonists, laced with half-truths and outright falsehoods, designed to drive a clear wedge between two groups they are preying on, so that there will be no unified front against them, and they can pick us off one by one, without fear of intervention from the other group.

Recall that Biafra was winning, until Ojukwu ordered Banjo to invade Lagos. Banjo, being an astute student if Yoruba history, and not wanting to become the Afonja of his era, paused at Ore, giving hitherto neutral Yoruba officers time to organise and fully join the war effort, with devastating results for Biafra.

That decision by Ojukwu to invade Yoruba soil was the poorest of many poor strategic decisions he made that eventually turned the tide against him. I need not mention the saboteurs that took money to buy weapons for Biafra and simply disappeared.

It is in the interest of Yorubas and Igbos, both formidable in their own right, to unite and get freedom together, or separately remain enslaved perpetually.

We must choose wisely.

Afam responds:

The war was waged from Lagos and Lagos was the capital of Nigeria which was in the Western region so what makes you believe that the Yorubas were not part of the Nigerian army that waged a war against Biafra when the head of state was waging the war from Yorubaland?

Did you expect Biafra to restrict themselves to their lands while the rest of Nigerian soldiers used Yoruba land and elsewhere to attack Biafra?

Was the war supposed to be a case of Biafran soldiers defending Biafra land from start to finish while the rest surrounded Biafra and bombarded the new republic from every side?

Or, did you expect Biafran soldiers to fly like witches to Lagos to attempt to capture or kill the leader of the country that waged a war against Biafra the same way they did everything possible to kill Ojukwu?

Please, this "Biafra invaded a neutral Yoruba nation" is very very false and facts do not support such a false narrative.

If events that happened not too long ago could be twisted this way then I am afraid the solidarity you talk about will never happen.

Officialgarri:
There's actually no time to read everything up there, but judging from the topic, I'll make my assertion.

What has the Igbos done to show their preparedness to actualise and sustain a 5-state biafra? Only media rants. Even chief Kanu is giving instructions from Europe.

So how do plan to bring SE under their canopy in unity?

read firs before commenting.